Ace: aceofspadeshq at gee mail.com
Buck: buck.throckmorton at protonmail.com
CBD: cbd at cutjibnewsletter.com
joe mannix: mannix2024 at proton.me
MisHum: petmorons at gee mail.com
J.J. Sefton: sefton at cutjibnewsletter.com
Chavez the Hugo 2020
Ibguy 2020
Rickl 2019
Joffen 2014
AoSHQ Writers Group
A site for members of the Horde to post their stories seeking beta readers, editing help, brainstorming, and story ideas. Also to share links to potential publishing outlets, writing help sites, and videos posting tips to get published.
Contact OrangeEnt for info: maildrop62 at proton dot me
A couple of years ago, I went through all of the Best Picture winners and wrote about the whole experience over the course of about a year. I've been revisiting the whole exercise recently with an eye towards this year's ceremony, and I think I've come away with new thoughts.
Firstly, I think One Battle After Another will win the big award. Why? Well, I still haven't seen it (that'll change if it wins, it's on HBO Max), but it won the Golden Globe, the PGA, and the DGA awards. It's historically unusual for a movie to win that much (the different organizations have a lot of overlapping voters) and lose. I don't really care. I've only seen Frankenstein, F1, Train Dreams, and Sinners from the list of nominees (I'd vote for Frankenstein out of the three I've seen).
However, the point of this is to wonder...why the hell should anyone care?
Is it unusual to hear the message these days that no one cares? Not at all, so I know I'm not the first on that front. However, I think I've come up with some reasons that not many others have considered. The first and foremost is the self-conscious effort by the members of the Academy, several thousand highly respected individuals at the height of power in the world of Hollywood, to separate their premiere awards ceremony from popular taste. And it didn't actually start that recently.
In the beginning, Louis B. Mayer wanted to control the rest of Hollywood not directly under his control at MGM. To help head off the rise of labor unions in Los Angeles, he started the Academy to create something of a clearing house for labor disputes that put the studios at a point of power over talent. He followed that up with the Academy Awards the following year to, as he put it, give out baubles to the talent so they would make the movies he wanted made. MGM made films designed to appeal to the masses. He made middle-brow fare with big stars and lots of entertainment value (and spiraling costs, which would doom the studio no matter its successes in later decades). Long after Mayer lost power in the industry, that ethos largely maintained through huge upheavals in the industry brought on by the downfall of the studio system and the rise of television as a main competitor.
Through the 60s and 70s, the Academy was awarding big money makers that people respected. The vast majority of these films were in the top ten earners of the year. Many of them were top three. However, that changed in the 80s.
The 80s was when Hollywood discovered that franchise/genre filmmaking could be a huge money maker. Genre was always an embarrassing necessity to the studios. Cranking out cheap B-westerns to keep the cash flow positive so they could pay for prestige pictures like The Life of Emile Zola that took longer to make and cost more. However, the 80s, in the wake of the unprecedented successes of Jaws and Star Wars, saw Hollywood find the most reliable revenue stream in theaters in decades: the sequel.
And Hollywood has always hated it. Anything populist in appeal became fodder for franchise filmmaking, and the Academy simply...stopped nominating the biggest money makers as an unspoken rule. Oh, you can find exceptions. Titanic is the big one, but they are very much exceptions. The movies awarded progressively got smaller with smaller returns over time. That dovetailed over the past twenty years or so when the Academy just decided to flip their middle finger at the public, starting with the snubbing of The Dark Knight in 2008 (which wasn't nominated for Best Picture) and extending to today where the only real huge success (there have been smaller successes) was Oppenheimer which feels like an apologia to Christopher Nolan for the Dark Knight snub.
The Academy intentionally told the people, for decades, that their tastes didn't matter when it came to the Academy's biggest annual gala. That the public was good enough to make slop for, but that slop wasn't worthy of praise. No wonder TV ratings are down so much. Seriously, who cares about Nomadland?
An Ideal World
Let's take all of that away, and assume that the Oscars are actually only concerned with awarding the best movie of the year, no matter where it comes from. Should you care? Should you, a peon out in the hinterlands, like me, with no say in major decisions in Hollywood, with no influence beyond our tiny addition to the economic side of the business, with no direct ties to people actually in the industry, care about the Oscars?
No.
No, you should not.
The Oscars are an industry award show. They are the top tier of an industry coming together to celebrate the professional accomplishments of each other. You know who else has an industry award annually? The American Society for Quality, the professional organization for statisticians and industrial engineers. Do you care about who gets their annual fellowship? I kind of care because my father won it twice, but that's it. And the ASQ probably affects our daily lives more than the Academy. Their contributions to industrial processes creates efficiencies that make our lives better. What about the Academy? They entertain us for a couple of hours at a time, at best, and then we're off to live our lives. Should you care about the people who made those and the baubles that they hand to each other?
Absolutely not.
“But, TJM, they are experts and know so much about what makes a good movie. Why should I ignore them?”
Because that's an argument by authority and the Academy is a terrible authority. From the beginning, the entire thing has been about control. Control of the direction of the industry. Mayer did it rather openly. The 50s-70s was an obvious battle between old school studio filmmakers and the emerging New American Cinema (the contrasts between Oliver! and Midnight Cowboy, winning back to back, as well as The French Connection and The Godfather, also winning back to back, are illustrative). The 80s was a real attempt to direct the industry away from the money makers overall. The Academy had residual cultural influence from the decades of them picking from popular movies, which allowed the fiction of their leadership to last for a while. But, the open embrace of politics in the 2010s (really started in the late 2000s) was just accelerating a trend that had already started thirty years early. And that's not even talking about people like Harvey Weinstein mastering the Oscar campaign (begun in 1978 with The Deer Hunter) to win with movies like The English Patient.
The Spectacle
But what about the ceremony itself. Is that worth watching? Well, that's a joke question, right? One reason ratings have cratered is that the show is boring. Which is weird since you have the premiere entertainers of the premiere entertainment industry showing the world that they don't know how to put on a show.
But I think the problem is the format itself. There is literally no drama on display for three hours. Say what you want about the politicization of sports, but the actual show on display is filled with the drama of physical feats. What is the drama inherent in the Oscars?
It's the reveal of the choice. Except, that's not drama. The drama itself is the choice. Those choices were made privately by Academy voters as they cast their ballots. They were when PricewaterhouseCoopers counts the ballots. It's not when someone opens an envelope. That's manufactured tension that lasts for mere seconds. Think of reality television like Survivor. The end of every episode is just a vote that lasts for 5-10 minutes, keeping people riveted to their sets because we are actually seeing the drama play out. It's not great drama, but it's something as we watch the people discuss their choices, go off to write down a name, and then Jeff Probst brings the ballots out one at a time. In contrast, The Oscars has movie stars stiffly deliver badly written dialogue, we get a metaphorical drumroll as they open an envelope, and then they reveal the result of drama. It's brief, manufactured tension, and in between are dresses and tuxedos.
It's honestly a bad show, and it always has been. It helped that the glamour of older Hollywood was more pristine in its presentation due to tighter control of PR agents who kept the biggest stars aloof from most day to day concerns. Outside of the movies themselves, the Oscars were one of the only places to actually see many of the biggest stars of the day. Now, they're just easier to see outside of those venues, so the Oscars is less special. (Also, I would argue that it was the glamour that attracted people, of which the stars were representative, not the stars themselves. I have a long held-antipathy to the very idea of the star system, finding most interpretations of it to be deeply flawed.)
Should You Watch?
I'm not your supervisor, but I'm certainly not going to. I'll probably keep up a blog post on my phone that updates with the winners and refresh every half an hour or so as I watch something else because I have a basic curiosity about the affair.
You see, the list of Best Picture winners is actually...a really good list of movies. Does each individual movie represent the best of the year? I don't...really care. There are a handful of bad movies, but there are a lot of good and a whole lot of great films honored. That list of films is not a bad thing to go through in an ongoing education of film (mostly American) history. But it's no more authoritative than my own lists or the AFI's lists or the BFI's lists or the lists you made about your favorite movies. The presence on this list of Best Picture winners does not make them better. Their absence on the list does not make them worse.
The key though is that the Academy is a nest of snakes who are actually using the industry awards show to jockey for power over the direction of the industry as a whole (you know...the stated point of the whole thing from the beginning), an effort that makes no sense anymore since the winners tend to be tiny movies that can't affect audience tastes anymore since few people see them. I mean, seriously, Anora is so sexually explicit that it will never reach a wide audience (it made $21 million at the US box office, a profit for the $5 million budgeted film). It's also really good, by the way.
Anyway, I love the medium, but I cannot be bothered with the people who make the movies giving each other baubles. It's a minor curiosity, and I am tired of thinking about it.
The Mystery of the Mary Celeste (Rating 1.5/4) Full Review "However, the script is way too thin, the directing doesn't give enough time to really build anything, most importantly a dangerous tone or mood, and the resolution feels like just another disconnected piece to end a series of disconnected pieces." [YouTube]
Death in High Heels (Rating 2/4) Full Review "Still, this is probably the best of the pack so far. That's not saying a whole lot, but it's a more intentional package from the pre-war films." [YouTube]
Dick Barton: Special Agent (Rating 2/4) Full Review "Still, Hammer has to start making something outright good at some point, right? Maybe when they hire Christopher Lee." [Library]
The Dark Road (Rating 1/4) Full Review "At least it's short at less than 70 minutes, but that 70 minutes is largely just dull." [Library]
Dick Barton Strikes Back (Rating 2.5/4) Full Review "Still, he does his best, and he can't quite save it. It's close, but not there. Oh well, it was a modest entertainment for a time. I have to appreciate that as it comes." [Library]
The Man in Black (Rating 2/4) Full Review "That being said, this is…mediocre but passable. It's not good, but it's not outright bad either. It's just milquetoast and not really worth much thought." [YouTube]
Room to Let (Rating 2/4) Full Review "I'm disappointed that my difficult trek to discover this movie didn't yield something more fruitful and entertaining, but really I shouldn't be surprised that all I got was milquetoast Hammer out of it." [Personal Collection]
Contact
Email any suggestions or questions to thejamesmadison.aos at symbol gmail dot com.
I've also archived all the old posts here, by request. I'll add new posts a week after they originally post at the HQ.
Please check out my videos from the last couple of weeks, mostly Oscar focused:
Welcome hobbyists! Pull up a chair and sit a spell with the Horde in this little corner of the interweb. This is the mighty, mighty officially sanctioned Ace of Spades Hobby Thread. We gave the Ace of Spades Wheel of Hobbies (TM) a spin and it landed on paper cutting.
As per usual Hobby Thread etiquette, keep this thread limited to hobbying. All (legal) hobbying is welcome. I understand that some people pay attention to military hardware, tactics and strategy as a hobby. Discussion of current events permitted but must be made in the form of hobby commentary. Pants are optional. As always, puns are welcome and encouraged.
Play nice and do not be rude. Do not be a troll and do not feed the trolls.
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Paper cutting? Yes, paper cutting.
It takes patience and precision, but some people are wise in the ways of cutting and layering paper to make three dimensional art. Seems like a sharp knife and a working knowledge of negative space helps quite a bit.
We'll do a separate theme someday on origami and paper airplanes, so let's leave those for another time. No need to confuse paper cutting with paper folding.
Your dino host has a small brain and short arms, so cutting paper is beyond my reach. Need your contributions in the gray boxes for help.
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Thomas Witte:
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Not sure what makes this paper cutting "Japanese," but interesting to watch an artist create a piece based on a photograph:
Not sure what makes this paper cutting "Swiss," but interesting to watch this artist make her pieces from scratch. She cuts only with scissors. Worth watching to see her workspace too.
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Works by an Ohio artist from Joe Kidd (who gets credit for the theme suggestion):
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EPSON is a Japanese company that makes printers. They sponsor a wide variety of Japanese auto racing teams. Everything you see on this page on their website can be printed on paper and made in three dimensions. Race cars, transport trucks, and even pit lane crew and equipment.
Warning - the website is in Japanese, so you either need to know how to speak Japanese or know how to translate.
There are many other race car paper templates on the interweb if this intrigues you. Some are basic and targeted to children. Others are more sophisticated (like Formula One cars).
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Cutting silhouettes with a live subject seems like quite a challenge:
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If you're really fancy, making pop-up cards out of paper is impressive.
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Cutting paper snowflakes isn't exactly the same as other paper cutting here, but the content would be incomplete without it!
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Want to know more about the manufacturing of curling stones? Lots of interesting nuggets in these two videos. The heavy Scottish accent is included for no additional charge.
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NOTICE: Next week the theme will be calligraphy and the written word. Think tools and technique, process, and end results. If you have suggestions, contributions, photos of your work, or photos/links of pieces by others that would qualify, please send. Space permitting, we'll feature Horde submissions in the content. If you don't send anything, I'll just post pages from the Book of Kells.
Even if you make no submissions, have a think during the week and come prepared!
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Did you miss the Hobby Thread last week? We did an wood lathe turning theme. The comments may be closed, but you can re-live the content.
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Notable comments from last week:
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Words of wisdom:
"Because despite all our troubles, when things are grim out in that wide round world of ours, that's when it's really important to have a good hobby." Posted by: tankascribe at June 22, 2024 07:41 PM (HWxAD).
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If you have trouble finding something in the content or comments that resonates with you, contribute your own. Send thoughts, suggestions and photos of your hobbying to moronhobbies at protonmail dot com. Do mighty things but don't run with scissors.
Hello Horde -Haven't posted in quite a while. You'll find me occassionally posting as Our Country is Screwed. While I've been lurking, we have adopted a 5yr old dog whose family was relocating out of the country and couldn't take her with them. She is originally from Bosnia and is a Lab/Terrier/Hungarian Mudi mix, at least according to the DNA test the prior owners did on her.
Her name is Ozi and after several months of adjustment, we think we've come to an understanding on whose house it really is. After losing Fenway, our Flatcoated Retriever a couple years ago, it is great to have a canine companion again. And, she watches TV where she'll growl whenever she sees dogs on the screen. Watching the Westminster Dog Show was an overload for her, and so funny to watch.
Our two cats, Dini (tabby on the left) and Smudge (Maine Coon to the right) have also come to terms with Ozi and her mannerisms. While we haven't witnessed it, we are sure there was a bitch-slap delivered to the dog, as only cats can do.
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So sorry that you lost Fenway, glad that you adopted Ozi, who deserves a family.
Love Dini and Smudge. Thanks for the great photos!
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PetMoron Adjacent Animals
Encountered by Members of The Horde
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Just this week, Mrs OCiS and I were looking out into our back yard when we noticed two birds of prey in a tree near our shed. At the top is a Coopers Hawk. If you look down the tree, you'll see a Barred Owl. We hear the owls all the time at night, but never have we seen one this close in the wild.
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Regards,Our Country is Screwed
Nice to see those birds so close to your home!
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Some tips for discovering PetMoron Adjacent Animals from By-Tor, with a couple of cropped images (for privacy).
I got a Blink camera system on Amazon a month ago. I was skeptical for $60 for two cameras, but Ring was $200 for one, so worth a shot.
It’s pretty good! Easy setup, great picture. And with the subscription I get to review clips of all the activations. And watch live.
I get alerts that pop up on my phone that tell me what’s happening in real time. Like this one-
“dark cat is walking on driveway.”
It’s lithium battery powered so no bothering with hard wiring, but they are cheap and last six months or so. The color picture shows how clear it is, with the same pesky cat setting it off.
I recommend.
Not raccoons this time!
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Thank you for sharing your pets and animal photos and stories with us today.
If you would like to send pet and/or animal stories, links, etc. for the Ace of Spades Pet Thread, the address is:
petmorons at protonmail dot com
Remember to include the nic or name by which you wish to be known when you comment at AoSHQ, or let us know if you want to remain a lurker.
Last week, WeeKreekFarmGirl posted this comment. The last part caught my attention:
42 Hi KT and fellow gardeners, still at it here. Just not much new to share. My Lady Banks haven't started to bloom yet. I did have to thin the under growth this year. My trellis is leaning at a wonky angle from the weight. It is 20 years old and we may have to severely prune it next year to fix the trellis structure.
Just planted 5 kinds of melons this morning, mahdu, Minnesota midget, model melon, charentais melon and a watermelon. Got my first jujube from my tree after 6 years. I hope I get many more as it was delicious.
Growing a new green/herb/lettuce, not quite sure what it is considered, called sculpit. It is very hardy and I seem to have a lot of it, it likes it here. I read the garden thread every week, keep up the good work horde!
She grows a lot of unusual and interesting things!
If you were to read a random selection of recipe books or growing guides, you would probably reach a limit of the number of herbs mentioned pretty quickly. There doesn’t seem much choice beyond the culinary standards we’re all familiar with. But in the real world, there are many more herbs available than even the most resourceful chef might have encountered.
One such herb that has barely made an impact in UK kitchens and gardens is sculpit (latin name silene inflata). But this green veg is much more common in Cyprus, Spain and Italy, where it’s also known as ‘stridolo’ and, in some parts, is celebrated with an annual festival. It comes under the tag ‘weed’ in North America, maybe because of its less appealing name ‘bladder campion’, but that didn’t stop me from attempting to grow some.
Like most herbs it grew fairly easily and quickly, throwing up tall stalks with long slender leaves. Besides using the leaves to pep up a range of Mediterranean dishes, from salads to stews, younger shoots are also picked in bunches and are the main feature of several pasta dishes. My harvest wasn’t vast so I’ve used it more sparingly – it has a lightly herby, peppery flavour which I think goes particularly well with egg based nosh.
But one of the best discoveries with this plant is not in its flavour, but its flowers. Allow it to grow and you’ll be rewarded with daintily spectacular blooms of petals perched on the end of miniature pink oval lanterns.
It's a Silene. Charming. More photos of the plant and flowers at the link.
Here's a U.S. seed source that mentions the festivals for this herb in a rather lengthy description of the culture and uses of this herb in Europe.
This deep cultural connection is evident across the continent. For instance, the town of Galeata in Italy's Emilia-Romagna region holds an annual festival ("Sagra dello Stridolo") each April dedicated to Sculpit, featuring market stalls and culinary demonstrations highlighting pasta and ravioli dishes made with the herb. Similarly, in Spain's La Mancha region, specialized foragers known as collejeros historically gathered and sold the wild leaves (collejas) for use in traditional stews like gazpacho viudo. Further evidence of its long-standing use comes from Crete and Cyprus, where browning the tender leaves and shoots in olive oil is a documented culinary practice.
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Found anything interesting in your seed catalogs?
I have officially become that person who gets excited when the seed/plant catalog arrives. New potatoes? Tell me more... pic.twitter.com/fWyIKGgcVm
He is said to be an avid gardener when not planning the massacre of protesters or celebrating terrorism. Harmless, yet "ten times as dangerous as his father", as some have called him.
I, myself, am kind of wondering why the UK would not be just a little bit uneasy about this guy owning SEVERAL luxury properties in London. And why Spain would have been happy about his recently deceased father owning property there.
History occasionally produces events that overturn the intellectual frameworks used to interpret the modern world. The French Revolution did this in 1789 by demonstrating the political power of mass mobilization, and the Russian Revolution did it again in 1917 by introducing an ideological state built on Marxism. Yet the Iranian Revolution of 1979 posed a challenge even more unsettling to modern assumptions. It had become a modernizing state that many believed was steadily moving toward secular development, given Peter Burger’s at that time on the secularization thesis, which he later rejected. It argued that as societies modernize, religion gradually loses social, political, and cultural influence.
Yet, suddenly, Iran produced a theocratic government led by clerics. For many scholars and policymakers, the outcome seemed almost inconceivable beforehand, given its shift to a more secularized government. The shock was not simply political; it was intellectual as well. The Iranian Revolution revealed a blind spot in modern political theory: the enduring political power of religion.
Prior to the revolution of 1979, most academic work, led by Burger, which was built upon the work of Max Weber and Émile Durkheim, assumed that modernization caused religion to retreat from politics as secular regimes rose to power. Industrialization, urbanization, and advances in education pushed religion away from the public sphere and toward private life. Indeed, Iran appeared to be heading in this direction under the rule of Mohammad Reza Shah, whose regime was committed to economic modernization and an alliance with the West. . .
Much of the continuing Western misinterpretation of Iran reflects the lingering influence of secularization theory. Many policymakers still assume that economic development, generational change, or deeper integration into global markets will gradually normalize Iran’s political system. Yet the revolution itself suggested otherwise. In Iran, modernization strengthened the social networks through which religious leaders organized political resistance. The Islamic Republic therefore represents not simply a temporary deviation from secular modernity but a different model of political modernity in which religious authority remains central.
The Iranian Revolution ultimately forces a broader reconsideration of how political change unfolds in the modern world. Revolutions do not inevitably produce secular or liberal outcomes. Instead, they reveal which institutions command the deepest trust within a society. In Iran, centuries of religious organization prepared the clerical establishment to assume power when the monarchy collapsed. What many observers once viewed as an irrational upheaval can instead be seen as the logical outcome of Iran’s historical structure. The deeper lesson is simple: religion remains one of the most powerful political forces in the modern world. Ignoring that reality will continue to produce misunderstandings about Iran—and about revolutions more broadly.
Something to think about.
Comment on this piece, which is much longer than the excerpts above:
The Mullahs of Iran and Bolshevik rise to power in Russia have many parallels. Both future leaders were in exile in Europe, and both sent in to disrupt the political situations in Russia and Iran. Both countries were suffering from instable and reactionary governments. And, as both succeeded, a small minority was able to seize power and brutally establish an authoritarian system that eliminated the competition and enforced their agenda over the populus. The USSR eventually collapsed from its own rot, the mullahs will have to be forcibly removed or they will hold on indefinitely.
It always amazes me that so many dictators of the 20th Century who mass-murdered their own people spent time in Paris first.
I tend to think of Marxism and some of its variants as religions, too.
My personal journey into understanding why Iran is so intensely hostile toward Israel began when I studied at the Islamic College in London, which teaches the Twelver Shiʿa tradition. My time there was unique, as it gave me a rare opportunity as a non-Muslim to learn from Muslim and Shiʿa scholars and to listen carefully to their perspectives. During that time, I came to see more clearly how religion—specifically Ayatollah Khomeini’s revolutionary, Twelver Shiʿa–influenced messianic theology—shapes the Iranian regime’s perception of reality.
While pursuing my studies, I came to my own conclusion that the animosity of Iran toward Israel is not just political, but religious, which is fundamentally different and is not well understood in the West. And while the religious nature of Israel’s elimination in Iran is often either denied or downplayed by political and academic analysts, understanding Khomeini’s Shia end-of-days ideology, is nonetheless key. Political discourse is a side-effect of the Khomeini’s worldview, which is dictated by his eschatology. Appeasement and compromise with the Iranian regime will not accomplish the elimination of its desires to obliterate Israel since the regime views the destruction of Israel as a precursor to the arrival of the Mahdi (Twelfth Imam), as revealed by Shiite texts.
Perhaps the scariest part of Iran’s apocalyptic belief system that is not deterred by mutually assured destruction is Iran’s feverish desire to obtain nuclear weapons. Whereas other states see nuclear weapons as tools for deterrence, Iran’s regime believes nuclear weapons will allow them to destroy Israel, and possibly the world, facilitating the necessary chaos for the arrival of the Twelfth Imam.
Iranian political and military officials, including the late Ahmadinejad, have claimed again and again that Israel must be “wiped off the map.” These are not empty threats. It is their religious obligation to do so. Should Iran obtain a nuclear weapon, the world will be dealing with a regime willing to use it as an act of obedience to God.
Iran’s genocidal dreams about Israel cannot be dismissed as rhetoric, political bluster, or even calculated decisions that can be altered through international engagement and rational discourse. It is a religiously motivated war, and until the world recognizes this, containment of Iran will fail. This is not a regime that can be negotiated with or appeased.
MEANWHILE,
Full mask off moment for the social justice theocracy as the UK declares its nation’s own literary legacy to be a terroristic peril https://t.co/dYLsPs9M1k
The Week In Pictures: Ayatollahed You So Edition
Much happened this week: there were primaries in Texas, Bill and Hillary Clinton testified on Jeffrey Epstein, Tim Walz and Keith Ellison testified in Congress, Kristi Noem’s career crashed. But there was only one really big story, our long-overdue revenge on Iran’s mullahs. So let’s get to it–The Week In Pictures, Ayatollahed You So Edition:
Comments are closed so you won't ban yourself by trying to comment on a week-old thread. But don't try it anyway.
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Soon after the surprise, a glimpse of a leftie social media page which I follow did not find a meme to express feelings directly about what had happened in Iran. The political post quoted something from December.
Trump’s sinister achievement is to delegitimize the old intellectual and political establishment while at the same time cementing the racial hierarchies and regimes of repression that this elite exploited during the war on terror. In yet another parody of the “responsibility to protect” hucksters, the white-supremacist president also wishes to be seen as the authentic savior of a benighted world at war.
Western liberalism, constantly searching for monsters abroad, turns out to have been a moral mask for an intellectual service class—a fashion accessory tossed aside by Trump. It is of no use to those presiding over a swift and brutal reversal of racial progress. It should not surprise us how quickly the nineteenth-century prejudice that white men should dominate “inferior” Africans, Asians, and Latin American peoples has become common sense for much of Western politics and journalism. “The subterranean stream of Western history has finally come to the surface,” Arendt warned in 1950, after the nineteenth-century ideologies of racial aggrandizement had achieved a monstrous culmination in the heart of Europe. That subterranean stream has again come to the surface in 2025, and it is sweeping away the once-unassailable idea of the West.
The Classical Saturday Coffee Break & Prayer Revival
—Misanthropic Humanitarian
[Correction on Number 3. Go fishing. The book can be read later.]
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Good morning boys and girls and everything in between. Before we enter the Prayer Revival just a few house keeping matters to go over. (Rulz for those of you in Grantsburg)
1) This is an open thread. Feel free to lurk, opine and/or bloviate.
2) Be kind, be nice. Be excellent, don't be Pretti Good.
3) Running with sharp objects? Sure, go ahead, ER doc needs to get braces on that love child.
4) Have a great weekend!
Please submit any prayer requests to me, “Annie’s Stew” at apaslo at-sign hotmail dot com. Prayer requests are generally removed after four weeks unless we receive an update.
Prayer Requests:
1/6 – Diogenes requested prayers for his best friend since college, who was diagnosed with cancer. Within hours or hearing this, the friend’s son, a man that Diogenes has known since he was a baby, collapsed from what appears to be a brain tumor. The prognosis isn’t hopeful. Please pray for both of these fine men.
1/23 Update – Diogenes’ best friend’s son Sean had emergency brain surgery. The labs are back and it’s not good news. He has stage 4 brain cancer. They were scheduled to meet with an oncologist on 1/26 to determine the best pathway ahead for the time he has remaining. This is just crushing news. Thanks to all the Horde for their prayers and support for this fine young man.
2/11 Update – Sean has not started brain cancer treatments yet. There are still some issues to work out. But he had more bad news when his wife’s sister was hit by a truck on 2/10 and is in critical condition (broken back, severe concussion, bleeding on the brain). Diogenes asks for anyone in the Horde to speak up if they know of any support groups for people in Sean’s situation. Thanks in advance.
1/8 - Doof asked for prayers for his mother. She was hit hard by the flu. She couldn’t get out of bed the morning of 1/8 and was sent by ambulance to the hospital. She is alert and communicating but prayers are appreciated for her recovery. Prayers are also appreciated for Doof, as he absolutely despises hospitals.
2/18 Update – Mom was moved to a different facility on 2/12. She is still receiving post-hospital rehab, but this place also has long term care and assisted living options, so more robust care is available. She is happier there and is improving daily. She still has a long way to go, so continued prayers are much appreciated!
1/24 – Ace-Endorsed Author A.H. Lloyd posted some updates and requests. In the blessings department: blood glucose has continued to fall, well within normal range. BP is good. The hole where his molar used to be is coming along nicely. The youngest has jaw surgery coming up in February. This is many years in the making and should correct her bite and ease the pain in her jaw and ears. She’s not looking forward to the liquid diet, but is looking forward to the pain relief. Prayers are always appreciated, and based on what they have been through, he knows they are efficacious.
2/7 Update – He does not have any pain related to his lost molar anymore. And his (adult) daughter’s jaw surgery is scheduled for 2/9. She will stay overnight at the hospital in Ann Arbor.
2/14 Update – His daughter’s jaw surgery seems to be fully successful, thanks be to God. She is recuperating rapidly, the swelling is sharply down, and she’s counting the days to getting off the liquid diet.
1/31 – George V asked for prayers for his wife. She needs a heart valve replacement but first needs a heart cath to assess the valve and determine the replacement procedure and perhaps put stents in the coronary arteries that may be partially blocked. Also, the preliminary CT scan of her heart showed spots on her lungs that may be cancerous.
2/21 Update – The prayers are working. Thanks be to God and everyone who prayed. The heart cath showed no blockages in her arteries. The heart valve procedure will be in about 4 weeks. The pulmonologist said the lung spots have a very low chance of being cancerous, but a second scan will tell for sure. So far good news, and thanks to all who prayed for her.
2/4 – BifBewalski posted that it has been a little over a year since he took Smash to the ER for abdominal problems. After a full year of insurance BS, specialists, and other doctors visits, she has been taken back for abdominal surgery today. Please offer a prayer for her successful procedure and a speedy recovery.
2/7 Update – BifBewalski brought Smash home from the overnight stay in the hospital. She is recovering well. The post-surgery fever broke and the pain is minimal. A full recovery is expected. Thank you for the prayers – it truly makes a difference!
2/7 – Frankie asked for prayers for her godmother, Linda, who has been in declining health and recently had to move to a care facility.
2/7 – Vmom deport deport deport requested prayers for her hubby, who has had the coughing crud since 2/2.
2/14 Update – Vmom also asks for prayers on behalf of her husband, as his employer is expected to file for Chapter 11. They are hoping for a decent severance.
2/11 – Bluebell sent an update from grammie winger: "I've finished my 6th round of chemo. Thursday (Feb. 12) I will meet with the surgeon who will decide if surgery is an option for me. If not, I'm not sure if there's a Plan B. Maybe more chemo? Ugh - it's already deteriorated my vision and hearing. Nasty stuff. But it's all in the Lord's hands. I don't know how people who don't have faith do it. I miss Ace but it's something I have to set aside for now. I love each and every one of you. Even the trolls. LOL"
2/26 Update from grammie winger, via Bluebell: “Tomorrow (2/27) I go in for an all day marathon of tests and consultations. Then Monday (3/2) they will attempt the surgery. It is quite complex and they are not exactly sure they can do it. If they can, it will be a ten hour procedure. I confess to being a little apprehensive. The Rev is a little overwhelmed poor soul. Fortunately my two kids have me covered. My daughter the nurse for the medical side, and my son for the spiritual side. He has been a rock.”
2/11 – Joe Kidd sent an update related to his friend, Bill, who we prayed for in December. Bill’s former girlfriend had passed away, and Bill and the girlfriend’s family were devastated by the loss. Bill has sold the house he (and the girlfriend) had lived in, and sent half the proceeds to his former girlfriend’s family. Just recently, Bill took early retirement to care for his 90 year old mother. Joe Kidd sends thanks. If you know, you know.
2/13 – Whigwife posted that Whig made it through surgery and was resting comfortably.
2/14 – TCN in Alaska asked for advice. She is currently allowing her son, his girlfriend, and their infant to live in a condo she owns, and they are providing a terrible environment for the baby: pot-smoking, booze, no food, no formula. TCN in Alaska asked for advice about how to handle the situation. Prayers would help.
2/14 – L gave an update on her brother Ron. He has been in declining health for the last 6+ months, and has been transferred to a nice facility for hospice. They had been discussing this possibility for months. He would make improvements, then relapse, each time ending up more disabled. The best part is that he is at peace with the decision. He is aware enough to assist with the final plans and is enjoying parceling out his remaining possessions to family and friends. L’s daughter’s cardiac recovery continues. L says she cannot thank all sufficiently for the many prayers.
2/19 – mindful webworker requested prayers for his wife. Milady Jo will be having surgery on 2/26. It should be outpatient, and then a couple of weeks of recovery. Prayers are welcome for her, her surgeon, and her hapless husband while she’s down.
2/26 Update – The surgery is for Respiratory Epithelial Adenomatoid Hamartomak (REAH) – basically a blocked up nose. It’s relatively rare. It took a while to find an ENT whose diagnosis and surgical recommendation gave confidence. The surgery should improve her life greatly. It is scheduled for 1 pm.
2/28 Update – Thanks for the good thoughts and prayers for MiladyJo’s surgery. It took about 4 hours and seems to have been completely successful. There has been a great improvement in breathing and even appearance. She said that, after years of waiting, it seems like a dream, and that she knows with family, friends, and Morons and ‘Ettes, she is much loved.
2/20 – Gouveneur Morris requested prayers for herself as she has surgery scheduled for 2/27 for spondylolisthesis.
2/21 - Skip asked for prayers for his sister and her two children, as they grieve their husband/father. The memorial service was on 2/21.
2/21 – Vmom deport deport deport asked for prayers for Gerry and Cathy, the elderly parents of her co-worker, B. Gerry and Cathy are in failing health, and B is bravely trying to keep them cared for and independent while also being a mom to her own kids.
2/21 – San Franpsycho requested a prayer for complete and immediate healing for PS, his oldest living relative, who is back in the hospital due to post-surgery fever and possible pneumonia.
2/21 – Sock Monkey asked for prayers of comfort and peace for Rickb223, who recently lost his wife to cancer. It was apparently a long battle and he was her primary caregiver. He is struggling. Please pray for him.
2/25 – LinusVanPelt posted a request for prayers for himself. He had a health scare and it’s freaking him out a bit. He had a real thing happen, and then received a clean bill of health, but has 2 more doctors to see. He can’t stop irrationally worrying that they’re going to say bad stuff (despite the real reason for the visits is to adjust medication levels).
2/28 Update – He woke up in a hospital ICU recently. Everything checked out, and it was a stress-induced incident, but that means he needs to make changes in his professional life. He is looking for the Lord’s guidance.
2/25 – Teresa in Fort Worth posted that she might need some prayers. Her PET scan was less than encouraging. She will have more information on 2/26.
2/26 Update – There were 2 new spots on her liver and a couple of weird things in the transverse colon. But the oncologist says he is not worried by anything he saw on the PET scan.
2/27 Update – The newest chemo protocol appears to be working. Her cancer markers are below the “cancerous” range. So for now they will continue with 2 weeks of continuous medication delivered directly into the Hepatic Artery and 2 weeks off. Unfortunately, one of the meds is a low dose of steroids, so her appetite and her Zepbound are currently duking it out.
2/25 – Robert posted that he needed an ‘Ette to kindly bash his brains in. He is suffering yet another massive gout flare up, and needs someone to end it all for him. He asks for an ‘Ette because he knows women are capable of inflicting great violence with only love in their hearts.
2/26 – Farmer could use some prayers. A biopsy is scheduled soon. The dentist said he found a couple of suspect spots. After having had prostate cancer, anything like this really alarms him.
2/26 – Bluebell passed along news from grammie winger: “Tomorrow (2/27) I go in for an all day marathon of tests and consultations. Then Monday (3/2) they will attempt the surgery. It is quite complex and they are not exactly sure they can do it. If they can, it will be a ten hour procedure. I confess to being a little apprehensive. The Rev is a little overwhelmed poor soul. Fortunately my two kids have me covered. My daughter the nurse for the medical side, and my son for the spiritual side. He has been a rock.”
2/27 – turambar posted that his/her mom had surgery for a broken left hip. Lots of pins and a rod were required to fix her up. She is in recovery now and doing okay, but she has a long road ahead since she is 86 years old. Thanks for your prayers; turambar appreciated them so much.
2/28 – 2009Refugee asked for prayers for an older sister who was scheduled for brain surgery on 3/4.
2/28 – no one of any consequence requested prayers for the repose of his oldest friend, who died on 2/22. His friend had returned to the church in recent years. No one of any consequence will be giving the eulogy at his memorial mass.
2/28 – San Franpsycho asked for prayers for P’nina Bat Surel, who remains hospitalized and still is not stabilized.
2/28 – Fenelon Spoke asked for prayers for a friend, P, who is dealing with a pinched nerve and has to have surgery in a week or so. She also has a daughter, K, who just got out of the hospital having had major mental health problems.
2/28 – LinusVanPelt requested prayers for our troops, President Trump, and for Israel’s government and the IDF as well.
2/28 – Sock Monkey requests prayers for Mrs. Sock. She crashed and burned pretty hard while skiing Thursday. She went to work very sore and using a cane.
2/28 – JJ posted that his wife was discharged from her rehab facility and her prognosis post shunt surgery to regain strength and physical abilities is excellent.
3/2 – RickZ posted that he received bad news. He went to the ER with muscle pain and came out with a cancer diagnosis. He could use prayers for an extremely capable oncological team of cancer specialists, and that God guides their hands and minds as they work to rid Rick of cancer. And also that God would provide him peace and calm, and to help sustain him through this trial.
3/5 – Inogame posted the good news that baby #5 arrived! Baby was overdue by 12 days. Mom and baby are doing well. Baby was 9 pounds 8 ounces, and 21.5 inches long.
For submission guidelines and other relevant info, please contact Annie's Stew, who is managing the prayer list. You can contact her at apaslo at-sign hotmail dot com. If you see a prayer request posted in a thread comment, feel free to copy and paste it and e-mail it to Annie's Stew. She tries to keep up with the requests in the threads, but she's not here all of the time, so she may not see it unless you e-mail it to her. Please note: Prayer requests are generally removed after four weeks or so unless we receive an update.
2 Corinthians 4:8-9
We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair, persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed.
Development of the Exploration Upper Stage has been in progress since 2016, with the initial launch date set for 2021. It's five years behind schedule and with $3.5 billion spent so far - nearly ten times the initial estimate - is no close to reality.
The lead contractor for the project was Boeing, for what it's worth.
It comes in both Intel (Panther Lake) and AMD (Ryzen 400 series) models, and uses LPCAMM2 rather than soldered memory. The display, keyboard, and battery are easily swapped out, as are the memory and SSD. The Thunderbolt ports are modular - there's a little adaptor that connects the socket to a matching socket on the motherboard, so if you trip over the cable you break a $2 part rather than the entire $2000 laptop.
That's a thousand times more than much-hyped TenCent-backed title High Guard, which received top billing at the Video Game Awards. (Which are, apparently, bigger than the Super Bowl, though I resolutely watch neither.)
Video games are alive and well. The video game industry is dying of self-inflicted wounds. Latest heir to the Concord crown is expected to be Marathon, though it's been out for two days and isn't dead yet.
According to Carson's LinkedIn profile, he completed a doctorate from Waseda University in Tokyo in 2007.
"That is a lie," the complaint states. "Carson does not hold a PhD from Waseda or any other university. In 2007, he was not obtaining a PhD but was operating 'Splat Action Sports,' a paintball equipment business in a Florida strip mall."
Yes, prices of 32GB memory kits did hit $4000 on Newegg, up almost tenfold in a single day.
It only affected a couple of ranges of G.Skill memory - 27 products in all - including some bundles containing that specific memory. Affected prices should be back to the new normal now.
Musical Interlude
Disclaimer: You can't go wrong with a potato. Or you can, I guess, but you'll at least know you messed up.
Journalist Avery Daye exposes the history of Minnesota Rep Ilhan Omar
"Ilhan Omar -- I figured not enough people know about her family's history, so let's recap:
Her dad and her grandfather were both high-ranking military officials in the Barre regime, which killed over 200,000 people. They're most famous for the Isaaq genocide -- it was the worst of the worst: aerial bombings, executions, man-made famine.
People massively suffered under this regime, with the help of people like Ilhan Omar's family who supported the regime and carried out this, this horror.
-- They have family ties to this guy known as the Butcher of Hargeisa, and his whole shtick was "kill all but the crows.""
"So the suffering of the people of Somalia was so bad that there was a civil war and the regime was overthrown. Her family fled first to Kenya and then Minnesota, claiming they're like these asylum seekers.
These poor, poor people. No, no, no, no. They were fleeing to escape being held accountable for what they did. She was not oppressed. Her family, they were the oppressors."
"So for the Democratic Party to have her as a representative is insane to me -- and the way that they've like rebranded her as all this poor refugee? No, no. She wasn't a refugee of war. Her family created the war."
In Canada, you have a higher chance of being killed by the Euthanasia Police than an American has of being killed by gunfire.
In 2009, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin created a sensation when she claimed that government-run healthcare would inevitably lead to the creation of bureaucratic boards responsible for deciding who should and shouldn't receive treatment.
It's from this charge that we got the term "death panel," which became a near constant reference during the congressional debate over the passage of the Affordable Care Act.
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Palin was called a loon and a crank.
Even today, a simple search on Microsoft's Copilot for the date when the former governor coined the term "death panel" carefully notes that her accusation quickly became a viral talking point despite "being widely debunked as a myth."
Fifteen years after Palin's remark, disability advocate Krista Carr testified before members of the Canadian parliament that her organization receives weekly reports of medical assistance in dying (MAID) services being suggested unprompted to disabled individuals during routine, non-terminal care visits.
Who could have predicted that government-controlled healthcare, combined with legalized euthanasia, would eventually lead to the sick and uncomfortable being told to kill themselves?
Where does Palin go for her apology?
Canada, whose lawmakers, celebrities, and influencers often boast about their "free" healthcare and stringent anti-gun laws, recorded an astonishing 16,499 MAID suicides, or legalized doctor-assisted suicides, in 2024, following 22,535 such requests that year.
In 2023, there were approximately 15,500 MAID suicides.
To put things into perspective, 2023's recorded figure gives us a per capita rate of 37 MAID suicides per 100,000 people. During the same year, the United States reported 17,927 firearm homicides, resulting in a per capita rate of five gun-related murders per 100,000 people.
In Spain: The Barcelona City Council has instructed its citizens that they may not dance nor play music during Ramadan, because it would offend the Muslims. They say that Spanish citizens must "adapt" to their Muslim neighbors' culture.
— Kevin Dahlgren 🥾 🥾 (@kevinvdahlgren) March 5, 2026
Ultragay Nazi and Kennedy degenerate Jack Schlossberg says he's running to replace Jerry Nadler in NYC.
I don't think the Kennedy Mystique is still in effect any longer:
FOX host REBUKES Jack Schlossberg's DISTURBING behavior as he's running for Congress in New York.
"This is Jack Schlossberg's since deleted social media post. He designed a recipe for a MAHA energy ball. 'Two ounces of Jew blood, Ashkenazi, not Sephardic. 4 cups of male ----.… pic.twitter.com/nIqcCQWgI5
The weird gay Nazi has also filmed himself repeatedly giving a Sieg Heil salute. And I don't mean someone clipped him making an arm gesture that they're claiming is a sieg heil, I mean, he's doing a Sieg Heil and he thinks he's so cuuuute! doing it.
Open Thread: It Took Three Years and Ton of Money, But Fireball Tools Turned Their Offices Into a Sci-Fi Starship Interior Out of Star Wars and Star Trek
—Disinformation Expert Ace
So I'm putting up an open thread because it's been a busy week and I want to chillax.
I watched this over the weekend. It's pretty great. If you can't watch it today, come back to this post over the weekend and check it out.
There are nine parts and they're all worth the watch. Here's quick ten-minute recap of the whole project.
I don't know if I'd recommend that, though. If the subject interests you, I'd recommend just watching all nine parts so as not to spoil the final form of the remodel.
One thing he keeps pointing out is that TV and movies can build these props on the cheap because they're only props and only have to survive a couple of uses before the shoot is over. On the other hand, he has to build this stuff to be functional and long-lasting. I mean, the "Star Map" isn't actually functional, but all the stairs, doors, guardrails, and office furnishings are.
Here's Part One. In this video from three years ago, they build out the exterior of their offices, overlooking the fabrication floor. The offices look like the conning tower of a high tech aircraft carrier.
In Part Two, he builds heavy "blast doors" like you see in Star Wars. This is actually the first part I watched because, if you know me, you know I'm all about heavy blast doors. Of course they open and shut automatically. He doesn't include a "shissh-shissh" sound effect because he realizes that would drive everyone in the office crazy after five minutes.
Part Three is short and skippable. In this, they put on false "armored blast shutters" over the windows from Part One. It's neat but in the end, it's just about cutting plywood to look like metal armor shutters. It's not going to blow your mind. You can skip to the end to just see what they look like, installed.
Part Four is also skippable. In this, they build a giant "sensor screen" for the office. It's neat but like the last one, it's mostly what you'd think it would be. Putting four 65 inch TV screens on the ceiling and making them look like one big portal. Again, maybe skip to the end.
Part Five is interesting -- stairs up to the office. Yes stairs are boring but science fiction Death Star stairs are interesting. They plot a design which will make them look futuristic. The owner points out that in Star Wars, stairs never have railings, but unfortunately the Fascist Building Code requires them. But he'll try to make them look "spacey."
In Part Six, he builds an "infinite reflection" "Portal" as a visual feature for the stairs. Kind of neat, but also, I think, skippable unless you're going to watch all of them. Go to the end to see what it looks like.
Part Seven is interesting. He doesn't want people to walk under the landing on the stairs, because tall people might bang their head. He doesn't want to just close off the stairs that he worked so hard to look spacey. He steals a trick from Disneyland's imagineers and decides he'll build a prop under the landing that will keep people from walking under it while looking like a piece of sci-fi tech. The tech he builds is one of those glowing glass "star maps" you see in Star Wars and other sci-fi media. It's pretty neat.
In Part Eight, he actually finishes the interior of the "starship command offices." Pretty neat.
And in Part Nine, he finishes the project by building a spacey guard-rail on the mezzanine overlooking the fabrication floor. In a perfect Sci-Fi World, there would be no guardrail at all, but once again Imperial Building Codes require one. This is also skippable.
I like all the parts but I'm leading you to the best ones if you only have time to watch some of them.
Makes me really want to buy a two million dollar wetsaw. I can really get a lot done with a two million dollar wetsaw.
War Powers Act Vote to Limit Iran Action Fails, Meaning This Is Now a Congressionally Approved War
—Disinformation Expert Ace
Okay okay, that's kinda bullshit. But you will agree, this means that this is not a Congressionally disapproved war.
And because double negatives are effectively positives -- yes, Congress has voted affirmatively to not stop the war.
Jonathan Turley
@JonathanTurley
The Senate rejected the war powers resolution to force the U.S. to cease operations in Iran in the middle of active combat. Only one Democrat, Sen. Fetterman, voted against the resolution despite some of these same senators supporting Obama in unilateral attacks on Libya...
...In the end, the Kaine resolution succeeded in having the opposite effect of voting against limiting the prosecution of the war. The Senate has now been consulted and voted against limits...
The Senate rejected the war powers resolution to force the U.S. to cease operations in Iran in the middle of active combat. Only one Democrat, Sen. Fetterman, voted against the resolution despite some of these same senators supporting Obama in unilateral attacks on Libya...
...In the end, the Kaine resolution succeeded in having the opposite effect of voting against limiting the prosecution of the war. The Senate has now been consulted and voted against limits...
...Notably, the resolution was more feckless given the exception for "imminent threats." With full combat operations on both sides, all threats are now imminent and all attacks responsive.
...What is interesting is that, ever after the Senate was notified, consulted, and voted, Democrats are still calling the war "illegal." The Senate just voted against limiting or blocking the use of force.
The Mullahs made semi-secret overtures through the CIA begging for an end to the war. Trump rejected these overtures.
President Donald Trump told NBC News that would be a "waste of time," adding on social media today that there would be no deal without Iran's "unconditional surrender."
In more Iran news: The leading candidate for Ayatollah is a limpdick.
Mojtaba Khamenei, the favorite to become the new Supreme Leader of Iran, was repeatedly treated for impotency at hospitals in the UK, according to a secret US intelligence document.
On Tuesday, Mojtaba, 56, was reportedly preparing to be named successor to his father Ali Khamenei, who was killed along with 48 other senior regime officials in America and Israel's ongoing Operation Epic Fury.
According to a classified briefing sent by the State Department to the US Embassy in London in 2008, and later released by WikiLeaks, Mojtaba was placed under pressure by his family to produce heirs.
It required four visits, including a final stay lasting two months, and he eventually had a son who was named 'Ali' after the baby's grandfather, the then Supreme Leader.
According to US intelligence, Mojtaba married relatively late in life in 2004. That was 'reportedly due to an impotency problem treated and eventually resolved during three extended visits to the UK.'
'Mojtaba was expected by his family to produce children quickly, but needed a fourth visit to the UK for medical treatment,' it said.
The Conservative Party of Iran just declared itself and announced its principles. It's a pro-monarchy, secular conservative party. "Conservative" is not code here for "mullahs." It sounds like it wants to be what the UK Conservative Party should be, but is not.
🚨 BOMBSHELL: The Islamic Regime in Iran PAID a 47-year-old Pakistani national to assassinate President Trump in 2024. pic.twitter.com/lezwfTtVBq
— Gunther Eagleman™ (@GuntherEagleman) March 6, 2026
🚨 JUST IN: These Iranians in London are being praised for going to the US Embassy to honor the fallen American troops who lost their lives to the Iran conflict
Activist Calla Walsh Praises Iran's Missiles at Exhibition, Drawing Backlash Over Warren Ties
2 hours ago
Walsh, a Cambridge native who volunteered for Warren's 2020 presidential bid and other Democrats, spoke at an Iranian aerospace exhibition in a clip first shared by state media in February 2026. She highlighted Iran's indigenous missile program supplying an 'axis of resistance,' prompting rebukes from figures like James Woods, who tied it to her Warren history. Walsh later shifted to militant activism, co-founding a group targeting Israeli firm Elbit Systems, leading to arrests and jail time in 2023; critics now decry her praise for IRGC weapons while she continues posting pro-Iran content online.
These weapons are good weapons because the drone technology is "indigenous." I mean, except for the part it's all stolen from the West and/or supplied by Russia.
No seriously she praises weapons for being "indigenous" people's weapons.
She is a traitor. The group she formed, "Unity of Fields," is explicitly in favor of terrorism against the west.
Kian Tajbakhsh appeared on CNN last night to discuss the Iranian operation. It wasn't confrontational like Scott Jennings, Kevin O'Leary, or Ben Ferguson; he simply presented facts. He should know, as a former political prisoner. We discussed how liberals are trying to frame Operation Epic Fury as a new endless war, but it's not new: Iran has considered itself at war with the United States since the Iranian Revolution. Tajbakhsh was present when officials stated this--we've been at war with the Islamic Republic since 1979.
What he later said about the failed Obama-led Iran Nuclear Deal is what caused CNN to cut to commercial, and you can see why. Tajbakhsh plainly stated how flawed the Obama administration's logic was with this negotiation, and how giving this regime, the largest state sponsor of terrorism, billions might have led to the October 7 attacks. The fingerprints are all over it--the "straight line" as he said before, host Abby Phillip pulled the plug...
This is what Khamenei did when he was president of Iran: he sent ten year old boys to clear minefields. Each boy was given a plastic key. They were told that when they get blown up, the plastic key would open the kingdom of heaven for them.
This is the man the AWFULs cry for and call "selfless, egoless."
Hans Mahncke
@HansMahncke
One of the most haunting stories from the Iran--Iraq War is that the Iranian regime mass produced little plastic keys that were hung around the necks of young children who were then sent out to clear minefields, after being told that if they died the key would open the gates of heaven for them.
The regime later tried to deny the story about the keys, but there is no dispute about the underlying reality tens of thousands of elementary school children were systematically indoctrinated in martyrdom and sent to clear minefields.
A couple of days ago I posted video of what was supposed to be a memorial service outside a mosque in Manchester, England. They got mogged by Iranians celebrating his death.
Well, the mosque tried to stage another tearful memorial, and they mogged it again.
Check out the music. It samples Trump saying "Ayatollah Khamenei is dead, dead, dead, dead."
🚨 BREAKING.
Second night in a row. Islamists tried to set a vigil up for the Ayatollah in Manchester again.
AGAIN Iranians turned up and showed them what the death of the Islamic Regime leader actually meant to them.
Candace Owens to Military-Aged Men: Trump Has Betrayed You, Do Not Join or Remain in the Military, Abandon Your Posts and Take Dishonorable Discharges
—Disinformation Expert Ace
She wants people in the military to desert.
This isn't the first time. She previously told service members to abandon the military and take a dishonorable discharge if they had to. Anything to protect her Terrorist Friends.
Oh, and of course, she says that Israel killed Charlie Kirk because he secretly -- source: "Trust Me Bro" -- was going to denounce Israel as the biggest threat to the US.
Candace Owens
@RealCandaceO
Charlie Kirk was the first casualty of the War in Iran.
Never forget what they did to him.
She also, by the way, is doing a seven part series called "Bride of Charlie."
This series "exposes" Erika Kirk as...
1) a murderess who killed her husband
2) a secret lesbian (source: Trust Me Bro)
3) a groomer pedophile and child sex trafficker
On that last point, apparently Erika has fund-raised for an organization that rescues sex-trafficked children. It did not take long for Cavernous Nostrils to begin claiming that Erika Kirk was f***ing the sex-trafficked girls.
She's also "exposing" members of Erika Kirk's family, like her mother.
I know, I know: "Why are you talking about Cavernous Nostrils, the woman with the world's #2 podcast? If you just ignore the Nazi scum they'll all go away like the already didn't when we ignored them for two fucking years."
And so when you tell me to lay off Cavernous Nostrils, please let me know if you also think I should amplify her unending attacks on Charlie Kirk's grieving widow. I mean, I wouldn't want to be accused of "in-fighting" with "other conservatives." If these are all Important Conservative Discussions, maybe I should start linking them and get some of the clicks, too.
'I think that Candace can be opposed,' Boreing continues, 'I think that she must be opposed, [but] I don't think that she can be defeated.'
...
The show Candace was launched at the Daily Wire on March 19, 2021, despite Boreing harboring reservations about her. After all, she began her media career on the left-side of the political spectrum, critically writing in 2015 about the Tea Party and then-Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.
She began her "political career" by accusing her classmates of leaving racist voicemails on her answering machine. She never provided evidence for this, but she did sue everyone. She then parlayed that Race Hoax into a media career.
She started on the hard "woke" left. I mean, she always has been on the hard "woke" left. She just found it amusing to con the rubes into thinking she was a "conservative firebrand" for a few years.
Looking back, Boreing says he assumed Owen had undergone a 'political evolution' but now he realizes it was a reversible 'transition.'
'She's really actually just sort of detransitioning,' Boreing joked. 'She's returning to her first identity.'
Beneath it all, he argues, Owens is driven by an all-encompassing desire for fame.
'She used to tell [PragerU CEO] Marissa Strite that her goal was to be the most famous woman in the world,' Boreing claims. 'She said it in a different way to me, but she said essentially the same thing, which is that she wanted to be Oprah.'
In short, Boreing doubts that Owens holds any real views. 'Candace uses ideology in the same way that she uses conspiracy, or in the same way that she uses slander, and that's for clicks.
'She's post-political, she's openly telling people not to vote. She's saying that she's no longer entrapped by this right-wing divide in the country. She's about something else. And what she's about is Candace Owens.'
...
Perhaps, the most revelatory moment for Boreing in his relationship with Owens occurred as they discussed the rise of white nationalist streamer Nick Fuentes.
Boreing claims he confronted Owens over her refusal to distance herself from Fuentes and his racist, antisemite Groyper movement. Her response shocked him.
'I could not understand the positions she was talking and her unwillingness to
stand up against what were very obviously bad actors starting to emerge in the [right-wing] movement.
'One of the conversations in particular was about Nick Fuentes and the Groypers. She called them the YouTube Boys. And she said: I'll never go against the YouTube boys, are you crazy? I don't go against the YouTube boys.'
'I said, "Candace, what is it that you actually believe?"' Boreing recounts, 'That's when she said the unbelievable line: I believe what the people believe, I'm the voice of the people.
'It's actually one of the most honest things that I think Candace has ever said,' Boreing reflects.
'She views herself as primarily a famous person. She is going to give the people what they want. And she has an unbelievable instinct, as many incredibly talented people do, to [determine] which way the river is flowing at any given time. She knows where the clicks are.'
'Candace would have worn a yarmulke if she thought that that's the way the world was going, if that's how she was going to get the most and easiest clicks.'
[T]he 'final straw' for him, he told the Daily Mail, came when she engaged with X users accusing a rabbi 'drinking the blood of Christians.'
'I'd been uncomfortable with a lot of what she had said in the months leading up to that, but really, if there was a straw, it was the blood libel,' he says. 'A centuries-old trope used by anti-Semites to defame the Jews, from my point of view, that was the point of no return.'
So again, I'm so, so sorry to engage in "in-fighting" against this Important Conservative Voice who is now using every single show to post conspiracy theories about Erika Kirk being a lesbian murderess and child-rapist.
Jeremy Boreing
@JeremyDBoreing
I don't know Erika Kirk.
I do know Candace Owens.
Erika met the moment of her husband's assassination with a grace unimaginable.
Candace met the moment of her so-called friend's assassination as she meets every moment -- focused on herself and her insatiable hunger for fame and aggrandizement.
If you find yourself believing the latter in her smears of the former, please know you are being manipulated by one of the best in the business. But you're still wrong and in the wrong.
May God open your eyes to the evil you are participating in, and may God bless Erika Kirk.
Seth Dillon
@SethDillon
Imagine being Erika for a moment. You've lost your husband while your children are still young -- and not by natural causes, or some tragic accident, but by assassination for defending his values.
And while you're pressing on despite your mourning, one of your husband's so-called friends begins attacking you, instead of the man responsible, to do as much harm to you and Charlie's organization as possible.
And on top of that, as difficult as it is to believe, people who claim to be your friend -- who spoke on Charlie's stage and attended his funeral -- are suddenly nowhere to be found. They sit quietly on the sidelines, keeping a safe distance, hoping none of the arrows will come their way.
Imagine how deeply that betrayal must hurt . . . how much it compounds the pain you're already suffering.
You can't actually imagine it. There's no precedent for it. You'll never experience anything like it in your life.
Bonchie
@bonchieredstate
Everyday, there's some new line being crossed by this lunatic that makes me wonder whether certain people will finally speak up.
They won't, though. Not even this will be enough, and it's probably time to start asking why they are so invested in Owens.
Yeah I'm speaking up. We talk shit on this blog about virtually everybody. Kristi Noem got some shit yesterday and he main crime was being a little attention-whorey and maybe a little too dumb to be running a key agency.
But when Tucker Carlson, Cavernous Nostrils, and Gay Nazi Nick Fuentes come in for some criticism, suddenly it's just "just ignore them" and "why are you going after people on the right?"
They're not on the right. They're not allies. They intend to destroy MAGA (as they're currently destroying TPUSA) as it stands in the way of what they seek, a Nazi political party with popular support.
What will it take until you get that?
Or is this Good Conservative Behavior?
This is from early December -- and she's only gotten worse, and more direct in her accusations of Erika Kirk, since then. John Sexton:
Yesterday I described how Candace Owens is doing her best to destroy Charlie Kirk's legacy and punish his widow, family and friends in the process. All of this is literally based on a dream that Candace had in which Charlie told her he'd been betrayed by everyone.
For nearly three months, Owens has been insinuating (and then directly stating) that Kirk was murdered by a cabal of foreign interests and that his murder was aided and abetted by people he trusted at TPUSA. And for all that time, TPUSA has for the most part sat back and taken the slander without responding. But yesterday, they finally stopped waiting for Owens decency to kick in and announced a change in their approach.
This clip is about 7 minutes long and most of it is devoted to denying all of the allegations Owens has made.
Again, this is from two months ago. This doesn't even include the Lesbian Child Groomer and Trafficker allegations.
All based on the "ghost of Charlie" visiting this psychopathic narcissist in her dreams and telling her that his wife murdered her and that Candace must avenge him.
Even Matt Walsh, a cuck and coward who has been in the Leave Candace Alone camp, finally decided to debunk Candance Owens' many, many conspiracy theories, mostly about Erika Kirk and her family. Erika Kirk, you see, is putting on a fake show of grieving. She's not really grieving. Sometimes this widow actually smiles or laughs, so you know she's not sad about Charlie at all. But sometimes she cries and can barely speak, and that's all Fake Pretend Acting, so again you know she's not sad about Charlie.
And if she's not sad about Charlie -- you know what that means....! Because what wife wouldn't know how to properly grieve her husband, except the murderess responsible for his murder?
It took him 50 minutes to get through the endless lies Owens is pushing to her rabid, unhinged followers about Erika Kirk.
And by the way: One of those monsters is going to try to kill Erika Kirk.
Instead of telling me to Leave Candace Alone, why don't you start invading her comments and telling her to Leave Erika Alone?
Even before Charlie Kirk was murdered, she had her psychopath followers attacking TPUSA, because she's angry that Charlie separated from her crazy Black Nazi ass and thinks he should have appointed her president of TPUSA.
As Candace is now going after Erika directly, I want to publicly mention that I have it on good authority that these attacks on Charlie from before his death were coordinated with Candace.
In fact, you will notice most of Owens’ biggest supporters pretending that this is all… https://t.co/3veCDdy8is
— Richard Gage, AIA, Architect (@RichardGage_911) November 9, 2025
I think what may be going on is that many of you have no idea what Cavernous Nostrils is saying, so you're just not even aware of why people are criticizing her.
The trouble is, when people attempt to share this information with you, you tell us to stop talking about her and just leave this Important "Conservative" Voice alone.
Maybe i just have to start linking the clips of her attacking Erika Kirk and her mother every single day. After you're done yelling at me to Leave Candace Alone, maybe you'll see after the fiftieth post showing her obsessively attacking Erika Kirk and accusing her of murder you'll realize that gee, maybe Candace Owens is not an Important Conservative Voice who deserves our support and protection.
"Prohibited Access:" Kash Patel Now Examining the FBI's Dark Files, the Hidden History of the Deep State
—Disinformation Expert Ace
Via JackStraw, whistleblowers revealed that the FBI keeps two separate books. You know, like Mafia dons keeping separate books for their fake transactions and their real transactions.
One set of files were the official ones, intended for public consumption and used when they were subpoenaed.
The other set of books were the real ones, about what the FBI was really doing. To make sure no one ever saw these, the files were marked "PROHIBITED ACCESS" so that no one could see them, except the cardinals of the American Kremlin.
It's not just that the files were secret. They were also deliberately kept out of the SENTINEL filing system, so that you couldn't even search for them. You would not even turn up a stub saying "This file is top secret." The very existence of the files was hidden from everyone, including the White House and FBI agents themselves.
Only the heads of the Secret Police knew about them, and the heads of the Secret Police would share the existence of the files with their successors orally. There were no written records or admissions about the files.
Those could be discovered and subpoenaed!
EXCLUSIVE: The FBI's Secret Stash Finally Uncovered
For a generation, the FBI has kept a second set of books called 'prohibited access' files. After a long fight, they're finally being examined.
Matt Taibbi
Mar 06, 2026
A Federal Bureau of Investigation task force has begun excavating the separate set of books FBI keeps using an inaccessible "prohibited access" file designation, according to multiple government sources. Though an internal fight over how to handle the files continues, embattled FBI Director Kash Patel has assigned personnel to examine decades of hidden history, Racket News has learned, with some files already turned over to Congress.
"This is it -- the deep state," one of the sources said.
Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley, whose work with whistleblowers and pressure across years was key to prying prohibited access files loose, expressed cautious optimism.
"If it weren't for whistleblower disclosures to my office, the very existence of the FBI using 'Prohibited Access' files for some investigations would have remained in the dark," he said. "I've asked Attorney General Bondi and Director Patel to turn over certain Prohibited Access records to Congress. I've received some, but am still waiting on others. I urge the DOJ and FBI to keep digging -- which previous administrations apparently didn't make any effort to do -- so that the facts can come to light. The FBI's secret stash of records is scandalous."
Files given a prohibited access designation are not merely secret. They are "ghosts" which "do not exist," records rigged to return false negatives when searched for in the FBI's SENTINEL system. They're digital descendants of paper records that as far back as Richard Nixon's presidency were kept in locked offices, accessible to just a few officials, typically at the deputy director level and above. Currently, the number of people with the ability to access the files can be counted on one hand.
The implications of the nation's chief federal law enforcement and counter-intelligence organization having kept a separate, non-searchable filing system are mind-boggling.
"It's not like turning over a rock and finding a few bugs," said retired FBI Supervisory Analyst George Hill. "It's like turning over a manhole and finding a whole city."
"You don't run a Constitutional republic on secret files," added legal analyst Margot Cleveland.
A current government source said the prohibited access designation is "literally designed to hide files from Congress and from the FBI itself. It's really frigging bad."
Off-books surveillance and "disruption" of political figures in the Arctic Frost and Trump-Russia investigations comprise part of the find, but the files extend at least as far back as 1999, across Democratic and Republican Party presidencies, involving as many as a thousand distinct case numbers. There are no rules for passing access to the system from one administration to the next. Instead, operation of prohibited access files is described as an oral tradition passed down among senior FBI officials, independent of agents below and political appointees above in Congress and even the White House.
Here's how the files came to light:
A week and a half ago, on February 25th, Patel mentioned prohibited access files in a statement given to Reuters in a story about Joe Biden's FBI obtaining subpoenas of phone records for Patel and current White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles in 2022 and 2023. Patel called it "outrageous" and "deeply alarming" that the previous administration had him and Wiles investigated, "using flimsy pretexts and burying the entire process in prohibited case files designed to evade all oversight." He told Reuters he'd "recently ended" the FBI's use of the prohibited designation.
At the outset of the second Trump presidency, neither Patel nor then-Deputy Director Dan Bongino knew how to access the files. "Nobody said, 'Okay, this is how the FBI runs. This is what we do. This is how we hide things,'" is how one source put it.
The bureau has supposedly located all of the "prohibited" files, but the scope of the problem remains unknown, in part because in addition to the prohibited files, the bureau has a problem with what one source called "the shit on paper," which might involve field offices as well as its Washington headquarters. Added a former FBI agent: "There are files in offices and at headquarters that reside either in a safe or in a locked drawer somewhere or hidden within Sentinel."
An extraordinary aspect of this tale -- as Racket's Ryan Lovelace will soon report in more detail -- is that the Justice Department Inspector General has known about the existence of the prohibited access designation since at least 2021. He also obtained a 2023 FBI user manual for its SENTINEL GOLD records system, not always positively reviewed by agents ("Yesterday's Technology Tomorrow," is how one former agent jokingly put it), showing "prohibited" files as one of the categories in the system. According to Racket sources, prohibited access files predate both Sentinel Gold and the original Sentinel system, which was introduced in 2012. (More on this soon.)
The files only came to be accessible to senior Trump appointees after a years-long bureaucratic battle that began with whistleblowers in the Justice Department, later was taken up by investigators in Grassley's office, and only reached the offices of Patel and Bongino last year.
Though the prohibited access issue extends to other presidencies and other problems, including potentially the systematic burying of misconduct cases involving senior FBI officials, this issue only began to leak into the public eye because of Russiagate. When congressional investigators began looking at the origins of the Steele Dossier and the behavior of the private intelligence firm Fusion-GPS, they came across apparent conflicting statements involving Nellie Ohr, a former CIA analyst and Fusion employee whose husband Bruce worked for the DOJ*.
Read the whole thing. It's free to read if you just give them an email address.
They're so sad they try to hide Madison Cornbread's identity by calling her by her criminal alias "Cassidy Hutchinson."
Republicans on Capitol Hill are asking the Justice Department to consider bringing criminal charges against Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide in President Donald Trump's first administration who became a star congressional witness about the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot, according to two sources familiar with recent developments.
GOP Rep. Barry Loudermilk made a criminal referral of Hutchinson to the Justice Department in recent days, the sources said. He accused Hutchinson of lying to Congress in her summer 2022 testimony when she alleged Trump was aware of the potential for violence on January 6, 2021, and forged ahead with his attempts to rile up his supporters.
Loudermilk has long attempted to reframe the public perception of the events at the Capitol, including by scrutinizing the House committee that investigated the Capitol riot and found Trump was "directly responsible" for the riot. Loudermilk's referral was co-signed by House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, who chairs the committee under which Loudermilk is running a probe of January 6.
The Justice Department's press office didn't respond to inquiries about the referral. Both current and former lawyers for Hutchinson didn't respond to multiple inquiries this week from CNN. CNN has reached out to Loudermilk for comment.
It's not uncommon for Congress to make criminal referrals regarding witnesses that have come before it previously, especially in heavily charged political situations, and referrals don't necessarily lead to charges. A referral at times could add to a criminal investigation or prompt one. They are often treated by the Justice Department as suggestions.
A referral and possible Justice Department action against Hutchinson could refocus attention on a fraught aspect of the work years ago of the House Select Committee and prosecutors. It also comes a time when the Trump administration has pursued politically charged criminal cases against former government figures whom Trump considers opponents.
LOL. Oh, Trump is pushing criminal charges against the criminals who pushed criminal charges against him for four years. What a monster.
I mean, it's not even a close call that she repeatedly lied to Congress. Look at this easily-disproved lie that she personally, in her own hand, wrote a key note jotted down during J6.
The note is important because it shows that Trump's people were drafting a tweet that anyone in the Capitol not authorized to be there should leave. The J6 kangaroo court rigged the show-trial to prove that Trump really wanted an "insurrection," so they insisted this was not written by a Trump aid recording his thoughts, but by Madison Cornbread.
In the below exhibit, the the note in question. It is clearly from a masculine hand. Writing in all-caps block letters is the biggest giveaway that a man is writing. I personally only barely remember how to form lower-case letters. I never use them, except in my signature.
So, to disprove the clear fact that Trump was giving orders for the "insurrectionists" to disperse, Madison Cornbread perjured herself and said she wrote the note.
Here's Madison Cornbread's actual handwriting. If you squint really closely, you might notice some subtle distinctions between the note in question and Madison Cornbread's actual handwriting:
Does she really think he would have to seize the controls to go to the Capitol? Does she think the Secret Service would literally, legally kidnap the president and take him somewhere when he was screaming he wanted to go somewhere else?
A House panel reviewing the work of the illegally established and since disbanded Select Committee on Jan. 6 released testimony previously concealed by lawmakers for contradicting the committee's star witness.
On Thursday, the Washington Times reported the House Administration's subcommittee on Oversight released the transcripts of a Secret Service driver for President Donald Trump who pushed back on claims Trump tried to violently hijack a presidential vehicle to riot at the Capitol.
"I did not see him reach. He never grabbed the steering wheel," the driver told then-Committee Vice Chair Liz Cheney during an interview. "I didn't see him, you know, lunge to try to get into the front seat at all."
The agent's testimony flew directly in opposition to what lawmakers were told by Cassidy Hutchinson, a former White House aide who worked for Trump's final first-term chief of staff, Mark Meadows. Hutchinson sensationalized the televised show trials of the Jan. 6 Committee when she claimed an "irate" president assaulted Secret Service agents to try to drive himself to Capitol Hill.
"The president said something to the effect of 'I'm the f'ing president, take me up to the Capitol now,'" Hutchinson publicly testified in the summer of 2022. "The president reached up towards the front of the vehicle to grab at the steering wheel," she added, but he was stopped by the head of his security detail.
Ace is saying something to the effect of, "Imprison this nasty-cooched swamp hag."
THE MORNING RANT: Some Other Election News Out of Texas; plus, A Great Summary from Real Clear Investigations of the EV Debacle’s Cost
—Buck Throckmorton
Paxton’s Chances in the Texas Republican Senate Runoff
There has been a lot of talk about the two Senate primaries in Texas earlier this week, in which James Talarico beat Jasmine Crockett in the Democrat primary, while Ken Paxton forced John Cornyn into a runoff in the Republican primary. I’ve heard about all of the horse-trading going on behind the scenes, as President Trump aims to get one of the Republicans to withdraw. If neither withdraws, I am very hopeful that Paxton wins the runoff.
There has also been much hand-wringing among Republicans and euphoria among Democrats because there were more Democrat votes cast than Republican votes in Texas. While I am frustrated that so many Republican voters skipped the primary, voter turnout in March is almost unrelated to turnout in November’s general election.
In the senate primaries this week, there were 2.07 million Republican ballots cast and 2.22 million Democrat ballots cast. By contrast, four years ago in the mid-term Texas gubernatorial election there were 1.95 million Republican primary ballots and just 1.07 million Democrat primary ballots. But in the November 2022 general election, Greg Abbot received 4.4 million votes and “Beto” O’Rourke received 3.5 million votes. Again, primary turnout is not reflective of the general election.
Beyond that, Texas is infested with so many RINOs because there have been so few contested Democrat primaries in recent decades. Therefore, Democrats often crossed over to the Republican primary to elect left wing, false-flag “Republicans” such as John Cornyn.
Here’s the good news – because there were so many Democrats voting in their own primary this year, John Cornyn cannot count on them bailing him out in the Republican runoff. Anyone who voted in the Democrat primary is now ineligible to vote in the Republican runoff.
This also means, a great number of "sideline" Democrats—who could be tapped for engagement in Republican runoffs—are now not available for that little RINO trick.
— Michael Quinn Sullivan ���� (@MQSullivan) March 4, 2026
*****
Conservatives Sweep Texas State Board of Education Primaries
Elections involving school boards aren’t very sexy, but they are probably more important in the current culture war than the more prominent governor and senate races.
Ryan James Girdusky’s 1776 Project has done an outstanding job pouring resources and training into local school board races and state board of education races. It supported four hard-core conservative candidates in Republican primaries against RINOs and other establishment candidates. All four conservatives won, and if they win their general election races against their Democrat opponents in November, Texas will finally have conservatives in charge of state textbooks and curriculum. Because of Texas’ size and impact, this also affects other states that follow Texas’ lead.
What were these candidates running on? These were the common issues in their campaigns:
• Combatting the woke agenda and leftist indoctrination in schools.
• Defending parental rights in education decisions.
• Promoting conservative values in schools, specifically faith, family, patriotism, liberty, and moral character.
• Supporting high academic standards and expectation.
— 1776 Project PAC | Text 1776 to 76176 (@1776ProjectPac) March 4, 2026
Much gratitude to Mr. Girdusky and the 1776 Project.
*****
“One Riot, One Ranger” Statue Stands Proud Again
In the great national convulsion following the death of George Floyd in 2020, there was widespread toppling of patriotic statues across the land. One of those toppled statues was the “One Riot, One Ranger” statue at Dallas Love Field airport. The statue was in tribute to the legendary Texas law enforcement agency, The Texas Rangers.
On Monday morning, the club accepted and installed the 12-foot bronze One Riot, One Ranger statue depicting a member of the Texas Rangers law enforcement agency that had previously stood at Dallas Love Field until it was removed during the racially-charged summer of 2020.
Below is a picture of the despicable desecration in 2020. The header picture at the top of this post is the ranger at his new home.
In case you’ve never heard the “one riot, one ranger” story (which is probably apocryphal): In the late 19th century, lawlessness had broken out in a Texas town, so the mayor telegraphed the governor seeking help from the Texas Rangers. When the train arrived, just one Ranger got off the train. The incredulous mayor asked if there was only one Ranger dispatched, to which the Ranger replied that his understanding was that there was only one riot.
*****
Real Clear Investigations’ Summary of the Costly EV Debacle
James Varney at Real Clear Investigations is a friend of the blog and a heck of a writer. He has written an outstanding piece summarizing the obscene waste of taxpayer money involved in the failed “EV transition.” I’ve extracted some of it, but there is much more, and I encourage you to go read the entire piece.
The future was supposed to have arrived this year in a cluster of counties just east of Atlanta in the form of a state-of-the-art factory that would churn out 400,000 electric vehicles a year. But when JoEllen Artz looks about her lifetime neighborhood, all she sees are holes.
“Those shovel holes they made in the ground? That’s it,” she said of the planned site of a Rivian manufacturing plant. “It’s awful, awful.”
The problem is not a lack of funds. On the promise of thousands of jobs, elected officials in Washington, D.C., and Atlanta have pledged some $8 billion to the project, including a $6.5 billion loan the Biden administration green-lit in its final hours.
Those loans are just two of the huge public bets, or investments, that state capitals and Washington, D.C., have made on EVs. While no one has calculated exactly how many federal and state dollars both Republican and Democratic elected officials have sent to that green sector, experts RealClearInvestigations consulted fixed the total north of $100 billion.
Public spending on green energy projects, including EVs, began in earnest in May 2009 when President Obama, flanked in the Rose Garden by Detroit and United Auto Workers executives, unveiled his National Fuel Efficiency Policy. It was, the crowd insisted, “good for consumers, good for the economy, and good for the country.”
There has been bipartisan support for many EV initiatives, and the sector got a huge boost during the Biden administration when funding linked to a NetZero future spread throughout the federal government. The bill goes well beyond the billions of dollars in tax credits the federal government provided to EV buyers until that program was ended last September, and includes school buses, postal delivery vehicles, charging stations, and the big manufacturing loans.
The Energy Department, for example, has spent more than $30 billion. That chunk comes from the Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing division. Prior to 2019, the ATVM, as it is known, had issued around $8 billion in loans to five different companies. Of those, Nissan repaid its $1.4 billion loan, while Tesla repaid its $465 million loan years ahead of schedule. A $5 billion loan to Ford remains active, but taxpayers lost nearly $210 million on loans to Fisker Automotive and Vehicle Production Group, both of which defaulted, according to the department.
Some states have labored to force EVs into the market. More than a dozen of them have followed California’s lead, requiring at least 35% of cars offered for sale there annually be “ZEVs,” or “zero emission vehicles,” with all cars being ZEVs by 2035. This complicated, opaque system has made all cars more expensive, according to economists. Congress voted last year to kill California’s plan, but President Trump has not acted on that, and state officials have vowed to sue if he signs it.
On top of the costs of those market manipulations, which can be difficult to compute, are billions in direct state spending on EVs and EV-related projects. Both Republican and Democratic elected officials supporting these moves have done so on the grounds that it would provide an economic boost and be good for the environment.
Rivian, whose corporate communications did not respond to RCI’s request for comment, hasn’t only benefited from the Biden administration’s last-minute loan. In 2022, the state’s Republican leadership in Atlanta pledged up to another $1.5 billion – one of the largest incentive packages in Georgia history – including tax incentives, abatements, support programs, and more than $175 million for land acquisition and improvements. There has been an estimated $25 million in local incentives provided, too.
Good morning kids. The military operations to degrade Iran's military capabilities and ultimately to take down the regime continue, and evidently it is turning into a global affair. First we have the nation of Sri Lanka:
The fact the ship has been handed over to the Sri Lankan authorities so quickly strongly suggests the captain took the decision to preserve the life of his men by opting out of the conflict. . . Given the facts as known, this is the first time since the Second World War that a warship has been interned by the government of a neutral power. During the Second World War, several damaged U-Boats were able to limp to neutral harbours and turn themselves over to the authorities after being damaged in attacks, preferring to see out the remainder of the war in captivity rather than the certainty of death at sea.
President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan declared on Thursday that his country would use “the full might of our ‘Iron Fist'” against the terrorist regime in Iran after drones flying in from Iran struck an airport and near a school building in the Caucasus nation.
You might recall that during the Obama reign of error, Azerbaijan was going to allow Israel to base strike aircraft on its territory, making it much easier for the Israelis to reach Iranian targets with adequate payloads and fuel for the return trip, while attacking from the north, which would provide for the element of surprise. And Obama, being the Jew-hating dog-eating Muslim traitor he is, tipped off the Mullahs to this. Whether Israel alone even with these advantages could have achieved anywhere near a successful knockout blow against the Iranian nuke facilities back then is debatable, but in the event, it's now obviously a moot point.
On a positive note, along with Israel, Azerbaijan for sure does not want to see another Mullahocracy take control and so has a vested interest in real regime change.
Noem’s tenure as head of DHS comes to an end after a heated Senate hearing, in which Noem blamed Trump for approving questionable contracts worth over $200 million for deportation ads, which raised concerns about potential conflicts of interest.
Say what you will about her personally, but the fact of the matter is DHS, with her as its administrator, was the key agency that finally sealed our border and deported thousands of illegal aliens, representing a key, if not the most important accomplishment for President Trump's administration to date, and fulfilling a campaign promise and the longstanding desire of all real Americans who voted for and support this President.
An administration official reportedly told NBC News that Trump decided to fire Noem due to “a culmination of her many unfortunate leadership failures including the fallout in Minnesota, the ad campaign, the allegations of infidelity, the mismanagement of her staff, and her constant feuding with the heads of other agencies, including CBP and ICE.” The official allegedly said: “Kristi’s drama sadly overshadowed and distracted from the Administration’s extremely popular immigration agenda, which will continue full force.”
Well, unnamed sources, so there you go. But the fact remains that Trump sacked her. And with regards to Minnesota, is she being blamed for the multi-billion dollar Somali/Democrat grifting or ICE rounding up the grifters, which is what they're supposed to do?! The fact that the Democrats and their propagandists in the media are over the moon about Noem's departure leaves me more than a wee bit disappointed.
Have a great Weekend!
And lastly, a quick shout-out and a huge thank you for your continued support in hitting our tip jar. It truly is appreciated more than you can know.
Sri Lanka (Ceylon) has assumed control of the Islamic Republic of Iran Ship (IRIS) Bushehr, a fleet supply ship (oiler). Sri Lanka has sent craft to receive the 1970s-era ship within its territorial waters and, per local media, has taken off 208 officers and men, who are to be sent ashore. The ship will now be taken by the Sri Lankans to Trincomalee for internment for the duration of hostilities. Iranian Warship Surrenders to Sri Lankans, First Time Ship Interned By Neutral Nation Since Second World War
President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan declared on Thursday that his country would use “the full might of our ‘Iron Fist'” against the terrorist regime in Iran after drones flying in from Iran struck an airport and near a school building in the Caucasus nation. Azerbaijan Vows ‘Iron First’ Against Enemies After Suspected Iran Bombing
No one wants another war, but Biden proved appeasement doesn't work. (It wasn't appeasement so much as it was COLLUSION. Biden, i.e. OBAMA wanted Iran to get nukes and become the dominant power in the region. Even if it meant, and really wanting the destruction of Israel - jjs) Why Trump Took on Iran
Prediction: This war will end with Iran’s mullahs still in control. (At least, the ones that haven’t been killed yet.) Because it has to: We’re hoping the Iranian civilians will rise up and overthrow the government, but they can’t do that until the bombing stops. Which means that immediately after America and Israel conclude their air strikes, Iran will claim victory because it’s still standing. Iran’s Strategy to Defeat America, Shatter the MAGA Movement, and End Trump’s Presidency
I’m confident it’s going to be the same in Iran. Unlike Iraq and Afghanistan, where stupid people like me believed you could turn 7th-century goat herders and religious fanatics into Thomas Jefferson, Trump’s stated goals in Iran are clear: Annihilate Iran’s rocket, missile, and ballistic missile capabilities. Destroy their nuclear program. Remove any leader who does not accept this or who continues to fund terrorism outside of Iran. The Trump Doctrine is that you state your objective, achieve your objectives, and then you declare victory and get out. Trump Doctrine of ‘Declare Victory and Leave’ Goes Back to 2007
From Iran's perspective, this is an existential conflict. The revolutionary government in Iran intends to destroy Israel, slaughter Jews worldwide, and, in its leaders' more fevered dreams, conquer the globe. The war it began 47 years ago ultimately is a war of annihilation. What It Means To Achieve Victory in Iran
The current Secretary, Kristi Noem, who has served us well, and has had numerous and spectacular results (especially on the Border!), will be moving to be Special Envoy for The Shield of the Americas, our new Security Initiative in the Western Hemisphere we are announcing on Saturday in Doral, Florida. I thank Kristi for her service at “Homeland.” Kristi Noem Out: Trump Picks Sen. Markwayne Mullin as Replacement
The announcement follows two Congressional oversight hearings Tuesday and Wednesday where lawmakers grilled Noem on her job overseeing the Department. Two fatal shootings in Minnesota following the DHS’ Operation Metro Surge and an alleged affair with her top aide have led members of Congress to scrutinize Noem’s leadership. Trump Reveals Sen. Markwayne Mullin Will Replace Fired Kristi Noem At DHS
In Maryland, for instance, federal authorities moved in to shut down three India-based call centers that were making cold calls to U.S. seniors to sell fraudulent gold bars. The scammers reportedly stole upwards of $50 million from more than 600 victims in the U.S. through wire transfer, cryptocurrency, and gold bar schemes, ABC News reported FBI Cracks Down on Indian Migrant ‘Gold Bar’ Scam Targeting Seniors
Lankford is introducing The Stop Unemployment Fraud Act to reform the joint federal-state Unemployment Insurance (UI) program following the hundreds of billions in fraudulent unemployment payments made during the height of the layoffs during the COVID-19 pandemic. The bill would strengthen the program and ensure only those eligible and in need would be able to benefit from the system. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: Whip Emmer Says Blue States Are ‘On Notice’ In Trump’s War On Fraud) EXCLUSIVE: Sen. James Lankford Goes For Jugular Of $100,000,000,000 In Blue State Unemployment Fraud
Our moral betters, our moral superiors, those who sneer at us for our support of someone as “uncouth” as Donald Trump; those who have lectured us for a decade about how they are the virtuous, tolerant, and empathetic ones… These very same people are suddenly okay with supporting and defending a guy who sported a Nazi tattoo for 18 years. Bulwark, Matt Yglesias Embrace Graham ‘Nazi Tattoo’ Platner
When the dust settled, the annualized productivity growth rate for the entire current business cycle — dating from the fourth quarter of 2019 — was revised up from 2.0 percent to 2.2 percent. That matches the long-run average going back to 1947, and far exceeds the 1.5 percent rate of the sluggish 2007-to-2019 cycle that spawned a decade of productivity pessimism. America’s Productivity Boom Is Getting Hard To Ignore
CRIME & PUNISHMENT, NON-DOSTOYEVSKY
A Satanic cultist who killed his parents in a plot to assassinate President Donald Trump was sentenced Thursday to two life sentences without the possibility of parole. Nikita Casap, 18, confessed to the murders in January after authorities found him living with his parents’ corpses in their Wisconsin home, court records show. Law enforcement also found materials detailing his descent into nihilistic ideology, terrorist plots and discussions with unidentified individuals who egged him on — a spiral that ultimately led a Waukesha County court to lock him up permanently. Court Sentences Teen Who Killed Parents In Deranged Trump Assassination Plot
Does it ever seem like certain types of crimes get ignored or played down by legacy media? As humorist David Burge (Iowahawk) famously stated, “journalism is about covering important stories. With a pillow, until they stop moving.” We aim to correct this by bringing you the crime stories the media hate to cover in our new daily feature... American Crime Blotter: 3/5/26
RED-GREENS, CLIMATE CHANGE HOAX, DEMOCRAT-LEFT WAR ON FOSSIL FUELS,
THE 2020 and SUBSEQUENT ELECTION HEISTS , SHENANIGANS/FRAUD and AFTERMATH
The House on Wednesday approved the Tribal Trust Land Homeownership Act, with 176 Republicans voting in favor — just a week after some GOP House members reportedly drew battle lines over blocking Senate priorities. President Donald Trump has been pushing Congress to pass the SAVE America Act for weeks in a bid to advance the GOP’s election integrity agenda. (RELATED: Senate Republicans Have The Power To Force Democrats To Filibuster Voter ID — So Why Don’t They?) House GOP Seemingly Relents In SAVE Act Standoff With Senate
The DOJ’s failure to act against Biden or his aides marks another setback for Bondi, who has already failed to act hold the likes of former Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James to account. Pam Bondi Ends Investigation into Biden’s Autopen Usage.
DEMOCRAT/LEFTIST AND RINO SCANDALS, MESHUGAS, CHUTZPOCRISY, INSANITY
A May 2025 clip of Carville telling Omar to leave the Democrat Party on his “Politics War Room” podcast resurfaced and went viral on Feb. 25. Host Stephen A. Smith asked the Democrat strategist on his show to explain what prompted him to push Omar to depart from his party. James Carville Slams BRO-FO Omar Over ‘Stupid’ Rhetoric
16 months after Kamala Harris cackled her way into a loss against President Donald Trump, the Democratic Party seems to have realized its candidates need an image makeover to get voters to forget what their team actually believes. The name of the game is acting normal and talking like a moderate. For Democrats, that’s a stretch. Texas Democrat James Talarico’s ‘moderate’ act exposes his party’s new scam
The 36-year-old nominee is described as a “rising star” in Democrat politics and was seen the more moderate and electable choice for the party, given Crockett’s reputation as an outrageous and theatrical Democrat firebrand. But newly uncovered past tweets exposing Talarico’s bizarre woke views make the 44-year-old Crockett seems like an elder stateswoman in comparison. ‘He’s Toast’: Texas Democrat James Talarico’s Old Tweets Come Back to Haunt Him (Beatification to Beto-fication - jjs)
There are no moderates among elected Democrats. (because their policies and beliefs, like Islam, are antithetical to morality, sanity and civilization - jjs) They Can’t Give It Up
THE UKRAINIAN "FRONT"
The incident highlights the escalating tensions between Ukraine and Hungary, with Zelensky accused of imposing an “oil blockade” on Hungary and Orban threatening to block tens of billions of dollars in EU aid for Ukraine in return. Zelensky Threatens to Give Orban’s Address to Ukrainian Military.
Short version: Putin is stirring up ethnic crap in western Ukraine to distract from the ethnic crap he’s stirring up in eastern Ukraine, and he’s being aided in his efforts by pro-Moscow forces in Budapest and by ethnic Rusyns overseas. Put into an even broader context, we now have two ostensible NATO allies — Hungary and Turkey — working at cross purposes to Western interests. Putin doesn’t have to blow up NATO to get what he wants; the edges of the alliance are fraying all on their own. NATO is turning into a giant new Sub-Carpathian Ruthenia — it just doesn’t know it yet. The Weirdest Thing Just Happened in Ukraine... Again
FOREIGN AFFAIRS, INTERNATIONAL
And yes, while China is a net importer of oil and natural gas — and yugely so — the Communist nation exports refined products including gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, and marine bunker fuel, largely to Southeast Asian, South Pacific, and African nations. But not as of today. EPIC FURY: Trump's Play to Starve the Dragon?
The "special" job is, of course, taking over Cuba (last week, Trump called it a "friendly takeover"). The president implied during his speech that it would happen in a couple of weeks, but he said we need to get Iran under control first. But Trump was adamant, as he has been for weeks, that Cuba will fall. Of the regime, he said, "They want to make a deal so badly. You have no idea." Trump to Rubio: Here's Your Next Project
One thing unites the three great powers: all stand in increasingly strained relations with Brussels and the leading capitals of the European Union. Fresh Troubles for the EU
This result is actually disappointing, in that an impact of this asteroid, estimated to be about 200 feet in diameter, would have not only been spectacular, but would have been scientifically useful. ... The impact would have also eliminated the chance this asteroid might hit the Earth in the future. New Webb data says asteroid 2024 YR4 will miss the Moon in 2032
...these results add weight to the need for developing interplanetary spaceships with some sort of artificial gravity. Does weightlessness cause blood clots?
FEMINAZISM, TRANSGENDER PSYCHOSIS, HOMOSEXUALIZATION, WAR ON MASCULINITY/NORMALCY
International Women’s Day (IWD) on March 8 is touted as a global celebration of the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women. However, this year’s celebration is also providing a worldwide platform from which gender ideologues hope to promote their efforts to recognize men who say they identify as women as actual women through official themes and a number of trans-inclusive events worldwide. Make that make sense. Celebrating International Women’s Day In a Culture That Cannot Define What a Woman Is
CULTURE WARS, NATIONAL SUICIDE
“By age seven, the younger Mill had read most of Plato’s dialogues. . . He did not believe that happiness itself could be attained by rational means. . . Larger ideals are just what technocratic liberalism tells us to do without. . .I don’t want to see armies of drones when I look out the window. . .Liberals would do well to take more seriously the anti-liberal critique of technocracy.” Abundance Is Not Enough
A once-banned novel about migration and civilizational guilt reads today less like dystopia than prophecy—an unsettling mirror held up to a West losing the will to defend itself. The Camp of the Living Dead
Time and again, what appears to be the inexorable march to the hard left turns out to be another example of fake news. Traditional, right-of-center Americans are usually too peace-loving to take to the streets and too respectful of law and order to vandalize stores or set buildings on fire when things don’t go their way. Often, it looks like most of the momentum is on the left by their frequent shows of riotous force. From Bud Light to Netflix, Traditional Americans Keep Winning the War on ‘Woke’
Above all, however, this history does illustrate what Washington himself believed, that God himself was on his side, that “the same bountiful Providence, which has relieved us in a variety of difficulties before, will enable us to emerge from them ultimately and crown our struggles
with success.” Tuchman illustrates the almost miraculous confluence of events that made
that success possible. And in looking at those facts, it sure looks like God was playing favorites in making the birth of the United States possible. The American Revolution, as seen from across the Atlantic
ALSO: The Morning Report cross-posts at CutJibNewsletter.com usually within an hour or so of posting here, if you want to continue the conversation all day.
That's up from the current 8GB, but the details kind of make sense given the exact specs of the 5050. The update would switch from four 16Gb DDR6 chips running at 20GHz to three 24Gb DDR7 chips running at 28GHz.
It would provide a little more memory and a little more performance while using fewer components. The rest of Nvidia's 5000 series graphics cards all use DDR7 memory; the entry-level 5050 was the only one that did not.
I have the smaller, cheaper Idea Tab Nothing. It's not an amazing performer but the display is first rate - Lenovo calls it "paperlike" and I can't disagree. It doesn't feel like looking at a screen at all; it feels like magic.
The new model has a 13" 3540x2190 display (mine has an 11" 2560x1600 screen), 8GB of RAM, 128GB of storage, a microSD slot, and a pen. The specs don't use the term "paperlike" anywhere but I hope it's similar.
Thursday Overnight Open Thread - March 5, 2026 [Doof]
—Open Blogger
Thomas Point Shoal Light Station in the Chesapeake Bay
Howdy Hordelings! Welcome to the Thursday night ONT. Today may or may not be an important day for your humble host. Either way, thanks for stopping by!
As Boeing manufactured newer, faster jet bombers for the Air Force, mid-air refueling aircraft lagged behind. The standard refueling aircraft at the time, the propeller-powered KC-97, flew much slower than the jet-powered bombers it was meant to refuel. To Boeing president William Allen, it seemed like only a matter of time before a jet tanker became necessary.
The Air Force hadn't requested a jet-powered refueling aircraft, but Allen was sure that they'd buy it once they saw it fly. His $16 million bet eventually led to the creation of the 707 jetliner and the Air Force's KC-135 tanker.
Development began in 1952. To keep the project under wraps and ensure they were the first to market, Boeing named the prototype the 367-80, nicknamed "Dash 80," to disguise it as a piston-powered aircraft from Boeing's 300 series.
Really interesting backstory on this technology. Check it out!
A new exhibition in London takes visitors behind the scenes of the beloved stop-motion franchise featuring Wallace and Gromit. The show marks 50 years since the founding of Aardman, the animation studio behind classics like The Curse of the Were-Rabbit and “The Wrong Trousers.”
“Inside Aardman: Wallace & Gromit and Friends” is now on view at the Young V&A museum. Through set models, props, demonstrations and interactive exhibits, the show illustrates how Aardman producers brought to life characters like Wallace, Gromit, Shaun the Sheep and Morph for half a century.
“Aardman is an incredibly complex and skilled operation,” Alex Newson, the museum’s chief curator, tells the Guardian’s Catherine Shoard. “It’s also slow. Each animator only produces around two seconds of footage a day. Yet it’s one of the most accessible creative processes; even a small child can grasp it.”
Interesting article. Lengthy. Check it out!
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WTF??
He thought he put his opponent in an impossible situation and then bro does this… pic.twitter.com/3H6vp81xwe
— Dudes Posting Their W’s (@DudespostingWs) March 5, 2026
Podcast: CBD is joined by Buck Throckmorton (the EV industry's worst nightmare)... we discuss how the template of the Marshall Plan and "You Break It You Bought It" has been discredited by President Trump, Mexico is a flashpoint or an opportunity, more EV debacles, should we reserve employment for US citizens only, and more!
Nick Sortor
@nicksortor
NOW: The crowd goes TOTALLY SILENT when Biden tells them HE closed the border -- not Trump
Even a crowd full of DEMOCRATS know that's a total lie
Maybe having a dementia patient out there attempting to rewrite history ain't the brightest idea, @DNC
Nancy Mace to force a House vote of sexual misconduct report and harassment by congress members and staff. The wood chipper is no respecter of persons. Do it.
Posted by: kingsman
Podcast: Sefton and CBD Talk SOTU and the Dem's vile behavior, Donald Trump's love of country, Iran is coming to a head, is Mexico intractable, Mamdani's NYC is circling the drain, and more!
Forgotten Early 80s Schmatlz Mystery Click Honey, I was your hero
And you were my leading lady
We had it all
Just like Bogie and Bacall
Ooof, it's worse than I remembered.
China Is Not Our Fren: Chinese government posts AI generated content featuring attacking and killing American soldiers. Pay attention to the ridiculous AI banter of the US soldiers. [dri]
Podcast: Sefton and CBD discuss AOC's brilliant entrance into geopolitical policy, Jesse Jackson's demise, Transsexual Psycho Killers, is NYC about to get taxed even more? Olympic athletes who bite the hand that fed them, and more!
